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What would it look like to approach Saturn in a spaceship? One doesn't have to just imagine -- the
Cassini spacecraft did just this in 2004, recording thousands of images along the way, and
hundreds of thousands more since entering orbit. Some of Cassini's early images have been digitally tweaked, cropped, and compiled into the
featured inspiring video which is part of a larger developing
IMAX movie project named
Outside In. In the concluding sequence,
Saturn looms increasingly large on approach as
cloudy Titan swoops below. With Saturn
whirling around in the background, Cassini is next depicted flying over
Mimas, with large
Herschel Crater clearly visible. Saturn's majestic rings then take over the show as Cassini crosses Saturn's
thin ring plane. Dark shadows of the ring appear on
Saturn itself. Finally, the enigmatic ice-geyser moon
Enceladus appears in the distance and then is approached just as the video clip ends. The
Cassini spacecraft itself, low on fuel, is
scheduled to end on Friday when it will be directed to approach so close to Saturn that it falls in and melts.
Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old
